1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to a portable stethoscope, and more particularly relates to a portable smart stethoscope formed of a smart mobile device and a casing assembly.
2. Description of the Related Art
Stethoscopes are widely used in many fields, including human and veterinary medicine. A stethoscope can be used to auscultate sounds from different areas of a human or animal body, most commonly from the heart and lung thereof. A stethoscope can also be used to listen to various other sounds, such as bowel sounds, fetal heart sounds, blood pressure sounds, and sounds made when blood flows through narrow blood vessels. With the advancement of technologies, there have been attempts to build a portable smart stethoscope from a smart mobile device (such as a smart phone) by leveraging the computing power and communication capabilities of the smart mobile device, since such a portable smart stethoscope gives great promises in real time doctor-patient clinical encounters, remote and virtual medicine.
As one example, there were attempts to create smart phone applications which receive sound signals directly captured by the microphone on a host smart phone, analyze the captured sound signals, and aims to provide features using the captured sound signals. Features provided by the smart phone applications may include, e.g., detecting and displaying the heart rate and heart rhythm of a person, with the microphone of the host mobile device placed at or near the person's heart location. To Applicant's knowledge, a stethoscope formed with this line of approach simply cannot deliver “medical-grade” sound signals to a mobile device, and thus is not able to provide effective applications for serious medical uses.
As another example, there were attempts of using a separate electronic auscultation device in conjunction with a smart phone to form a smart stethoscope. More specifically, the separate electronic auscultation device collects auscultation data (e.g., from a human or an animal) and transmits the collected auscultation data to the smart phone either wirelessly via an antenna or using a wired headset plug through a microphone jack of the smart phone. The smart phone provides one or more auscultation related applications which use the wirelessly received auscultation data to provide various diagnosis features. Stethoscope formed with this line of approach requires a complete separate auscultation device from a smart phone, thus resulting in inconvenience in carriage, use, and storage.
Thus, there is a need for a portable smart stethoscope that not only can collect medical-grade auscultation data and leverage the computing power of a smart phone but also provide convenience in carriage, use, and storage.